Method and apparatus for configuring and managing customer premises equipments

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus for configuring and managing customer premises equipments (CPE) are disclosed. The method includes obtaining information of the data model supported by the CPE; extracting the CPE data model and the relationship between the CPE data model and the CPE from the obtained information; finding the data model supported by a specific CPE according to the relationship between the CPE data model and the CPE; and configuring and managing the specific CPE according to the found data model of the CPE. The present invention is able to configure and manage a specific CPE based on CPE data model by associating in advance the CPE data model with the device class information of the CPE and finding the data model of the CPE based on the device class information of the CPE.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/468,734, filed on May 19, 2009, which is a continuation ofInternational Application No. PCT/CN2007/070931, filed on Oct. 19, 2007.The International Application claims the benefit of Chinese PatentApplication No. 200610149727.1, filed on Nov. 20, 2006, all of which arehereby incorporated by reference in their entireties.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates to communication field, and morespecifically, to method and apparatus for configuring and managingcustomer premises equipments.

BACKGROUND

Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) is a broadband access technique. DSL hasgained wide popularity in hundreds of thousands of households. A typicalDSL networking is illustrated in FIG. 1. The extensive applications ofDSL technique, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), IP Television (IPTV), havebroadened the application field for broadband technology. Various IPbased devices have come into existence based on these applications orcombination thereof. The IP application terminals now come into use inthe households are called Customer Premises Equipments (CPEs), which areconfigured automatically by an Auto-Configuration Server (ACS).Accordingly, the CPE may operate normally in absence of a user'sconfiguration.

A series of technical documents proposed regarding CPE specify a datamodel supported by CPE and parameters that the CPE must support andparameters that the CPE may support by option. For a particular type ofCPE, such as a particular model from a particular manufacturer, aparticular software version and one or more type of the particularhardware version, the data model of those may be the same. To operate aspecific CPE, the ACS has to know about the data model of the CPE and aRemote Procedure Call (RPC) method supported by CPE so that it mayoperate and configure the CPE without error.

However, there are no good solutions so far to handle the issue as tohow an ACS obtains the data model supported by the CPE and the RPCmethod supported by CPE as well as how the ACS associates a specific CPEwith the specific Data model supported by the specific CPE and RPCmethod supported by CPE on the ACS. Currently, the ACS employs aGetParameterNames RPC method to directly obtain parameters supported bythe CPE and the read/write property of these parameters from the CPE.However, such an RPC method is confronted with two issues.

The first issue is that the data model obtained using such method isincomplete. The data model does not include the type and range of theparameters supported by the CPE.

The second issue is that, according to the method, the ACS has to obtainthe data model of each CPE every time the ACS operates a CPE. Eventhough these CPEs have the same data model, the workload of the ACS maybe increased.

SUMMARY

A method for configuring and managing customer premises equipments (CPE)is provided according to one embodiment of the present invention. Themethod includes: obtaining data model information supported by the CPE;and configuring and managing the CPE based on the data model informationsupported by the CPE according to device class information of the CPE.

An apparatus for configuring and managing customer premises equipments(CPE) is further provided according to one embodiment of the presentinvention. The apparatus includes: a CPE data model informationobtaining module, configured to obtain the data model informationsupported by the CPE; and a CPE configuration module, configured toconfigure and manage the CPE based on the data model informationsupported by the CPE according to device class information of the CPE.

As can be seen from the solutions provided by the present invention,embodiments of the present invention are able to configure and manage aspecific CPE based on a data model supported by the specific CPE byobtaining data model information of the CPE.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates architecture of DSL networking in the prior art;

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of an exemplary method according to oneembodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 3 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary apparatus accordingto one embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A method for configuring and managing customer premises equipments isprovided according to one embodiment of the present invention. AnAutomatic-configuration Server (ACS) obtains data model information ofthe customer premises equipment (CPE), and extracts, from the obtainedinformation, the data model supported by the CPE and a relationshipbetween the data model and the CPE. The ACS obtains the data model of aparticular CPE based on the relationship so that the ACS may performconfiguration and management for the CPE.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart of an exemplary method for configuringand managing CPE according to one embodiment of the present invention.The method includes the following steps.

At step 1, the ACS obtains data model information of the CPE.

The data model information of a particular type of CPE obtained by theACS may include parameters supported by this type of CPE, and type andrange of the parameters. The data model information may further includean RPC method supported by this type of CPE, arguments of the RPCmethod, type and range of the arguments, and RPC call returninformation. Additionally or alternatively, the data model informationmay further include device class information of the specific CPE, suchas device type information of the CPE or device ID information of theCPE. CPEs having the same device class may be managed with a same datamodel.

Specifically, Extensible Markup Language (XML) can be used to describethe above information, which is illustrated below.

< DeviceIdentification >  < IDName>Manufacture< /IDName>  <IDType>string </IDType>  <Value>Gamebox</Value>  < IDName>MajorSoftwareVersion</IDName>   <IDType> unsignedInt </IDType>  <Value>2</Value>  <IDName>MinorSoftwareVersion< /IDName>   <IDType> unsignedInt </IDType> <Value>10</Value> </DeviceIdentification> <parameters>   <parameter>   <parameterName>InternetGatewayDevice</parameterName>    <parameterType>object</parameterType>    <array>false</array>   <parameters>     <parameter>     <parameterName>LANDeviceNumberOfEntries</parameterName>      <parameterType>unsignedInt</parameterType>      <minValue>0</minValue>       <maxValue>4</maxValue>    </parameter>     <parameter>     <parameterName>WANDeviceNumberOfEntries</parameterName>     <parameterType>unsignedInt</parameterType>     </parameter>    <parameter>      <parameterName>DeviceInfo</parameterName>     <parameterType>object</parameterType>      <array>false</array>     <parameters>       <parameter>       <parameterName>Manufacturer</parameterName>       <parameterType>string</parameterType>       <parameterLength>64</parameterLength>       </parameter>      <parameter>        <parameterName>UpTime</parameterName>       <parameterType>unsignedInt</parameterType>       </parameter>      <parameter>        <parameterName>VendorConfigFile</parameterName>       <parameterType>object</parameterType>        <array>true</array>       <parameters>         <parameter>         <parameterName>Name</parameterName>         <parameterType>string</parameterType>         <parameterLength>64</parameterLength>         </parameter>       </parameters>       </parameter>      </parameters>    </parameter>    </parameters>   </parameter>  </parameters>

In the above example, the device class information of the specific typeof CPE includes Manufacture, MajorSoftwareVersion, andMinorSoftwareVersion. The device class information requires the value of“Manufacture” to be “Gamebox”, the value of “MajorSoftwareVersion” to be2, and the value of “MinorSoftwareVersion” to be 10, which isabbreviated as “Gamebox 2.10” in the below description.

The ACS may obtain the information via a Northbound Interface (NBI) ofthe ACS, or obtain the information from a network based on a UniformResource Locator (URL) reported by the CPE. The URL reported by the CPEpoints to a location in the network where the data model informationsupported by the CPE is stored. The data model information supported bythe CPE described by the URL is located at a server in the network or atthe CPE.

At step 2, the ACS extracts the data model supported by the CPE and therelationship between the data model supported by the CPE and the CPEfrom the obtained information, and stores the data model supported bythe CPE and the relationship.

The ACS may employ an existing XML parsing technique to extract the datamodel of this type of CPE from the information obtained at step 1. Ifthe obtained information includes an RPC method supported by CPE, theACS may extract the RPC method supported by this type of CPE from theobtained information.

If the information obtained at step 1 further includes device classinformation of this type of CPE, e.g., device type or device IDinformation, the ACS may obtain such information using an XML parsingtechnique. If the information obtained at step 1 does not include deviceclass information of the particular type of CPE, the device classinformation of the CPE corresponding to the data model needs to beobtained from the northbound interface of the ACS, or from the CPE.

The relationship between data model supported by the CPE and CPE refersto the association between data model supported by the CPE and thedevice class information of the CPE.

The ACS stores the relationship between the data model supported the CPEand the device class information of CPE. For instance, in the exampleillustrated in step 1, suppose the data model supported by the CPEextracted by ACS is named as terminal data model NO. 133, then ACS mayfurther need to record the device class information, “Gamebox 2.10”,which corresponds to the terminal data model NO. 133.

The related CPE data model and the relationship between the data modeland the device class information stored in ACS can be deleted under aparticular circumstance, for instance, some outdated CPE model or CPEdata model which has been updated already.

At step 3, the ACS searches the stored relationship between the CPE datamodel and the CPE for the data model corresponding to the specific CPEbased on the device class identifier of the specific CPE.

For a specific CPE, the ACS searches the stored relationship between thedata model of the CPE and the CPE for the data model corresponding tothe CPE based on the device class identifier. If a RPC method supportedby the CPE is also extracted at step 2, the ACS is also able to retrievethe corresponding RPC method supported by this CPE.

For instance, assume that the device ID of a specific CPE is “GameBox2.10,” the ACS may obtain the terminal data model NO. 133 at ACS whichis the data model of this CPE.

At step 4, the ACS configures and manages the CPE based on the founddata model of the CPE.

The ACS configures and manages the CPE based on the found data model ofthe CPE. The configuration and management process are known by thoseskilled in the art, which is omitted herein for clarity.

An apparatus for configuring and managing CPE is provided according toone embodiment of the present invention. The apparatus may be disposedin the ACS. FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of theapparatus. Specifically, the apparatus includes the following elements.

1) a CPE data model information obtaining module, configured to obtainthe data model information of the CPE.

In one embodiment of the present invention, the data model informationof the CPE may include parameters supported by CPE, and type and rangeof the parameters.

The data model information of the CPE may further include an RPC methodsupported by CPE and arguments, argument type, range and RPC call returninformation regarding the RPC method.

The data model information of the CPE may further include device classinformation of the CPE.

2) a module for associating CPE data model with device class identifier,configured to extract the data model supported by the CPE and deviceclass information of the CPE according to the data model information ofthe CPE obtained by the CPE data model information obtaining module, andfurther configured to associate the device class information of the CPEwith its corresponding CPE data model.

3) a CPE data model matching module, configured to search for the CPEdata model associated with the device class of the CPE based on thedevice class of the CPE extracted by the module for associating the CPEdata model with device class.

4) a CPE configuration module, configured to configure and manage aspecific CPE according to the CPE data model found by the CPE data modelmatching module.

In summary, the present invention is able to configure and manage aspecific CPE based on CPE data model by obtaining CPE data model and RPCmethod supported by CPE, and associating in advance the CPE data modelwith the device class information of the CPE and finding the data modelof the CPE based on the device class information of the CPE.

The foregoing is merely exemplary embodiments of the present invention,while the scope of the present invention is not so limited. Anyvariations or equivalents can be readily appreciated by those skilled inthe art. These variations or equivalents shall be construed as fallwithin the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the scope of thepresent invention should be determined by the scope of the claims.

1. A method for managing custom premises equipment, CPE, comprising:obtaining data model information supported by the CPE; and managing theCPE based on the data model information supported by the CPE accordingto device class information of the CPE.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the obtaining the data model information supported by the CPEcomprises one of: obtaining the data model information supported by theCPE via a northbound interface of an auto-configuration server, ACS; orobtaining the data model information supported by the CPE from a networkbased on a uniform resource locator reported by the CPE.
 3. The methodof claim 2, wherein the obtaining the data model information supportedby the CPE from a network based on a uniform resource locator reportedby the CPE comprises one of: obtaining the data model informationsupported by the CPE according to the uniform resource locator from aserver in the network; or obtaining the data model information supportedby the CPE according to the uniform resource locator from the CPE. 4.The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining the data model informationsupported by the CPE further comprises: extracting data model supportedby the CPE from the data module information; and obtaining relationshipbetween the data model supported by the CPE and the CPE according to thedata model and the device class information of the CPE.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, wherein before the obtaining data model information supportedby the CPE, the method further comprises: searching for a relationshipbetween the CPE and the data model supported by the CPE according to thedevice class information of the CPE; and confirming that therelationship between the CPE and the data model supported by the CPE isnot stored.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the data model informationsupported by the CPE comprises one of: parameters supported by the CPE,and type of the parameters; or a Remote Procedure Call, RPC, methodsupported by the CPE and arguments of the RPC method, argument type,range and RPC call return information regarding the RPC method; and themethod further comprises: extracting the RPC method supported by the CPEfrom the data model information supported by the CPE if the data modelinformation of the CPE comprises the RPC method supported by the CPE. 7.The method of claim 6, wherein the data model information supported bythe CPE further comprises: range of the parameters or device classinformation of the CPE; and the method further comprises: extracting thedevice class information of the CPE from the data model information ifthe data model information comprises the device class information.
 8. Anapparatus for managing custom premises equipments, CPE, comprising: aCPE data model information obtaining module, configured to obtain thedata model information supported by the CPE; a CPE configuration module,configured to manage the CPE based on the data model informationsupported by the CPE according to device class information of the CPE.9. The apparatus of claim 8, further comprising: a module forassociating CPE data model with device class, configured to extract thedata model supported by the CPE and the device class of the CPEaccording to the data model information supported by the CPE andassociate the device class of the CPE with its corresponding data model;a CPE data model matching module, configured to search for acorresponding CPE data mode based on the device class of the CPE. 10.The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the CPE configuration module isconfigured to manage the CPE based on the data model determined by theCPE data model matching module.
 11. A method for managing custompremises equipment, CPE, comprising: obtaining a uniform resourcelocator from the CPE, wherein the uniform resource locator references anExtensible Markup Language file which describes data model supported bythe CPE; and obtaining the data model supported by the CPE based on theuniform resource locator; configuring the CPE according to the datamodel.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the obtaining the data modelsupported by the CPE based on the uniform resource locator comprises:obtaining the data model information supported by the CPE according tothe uniform resource locator from a server in the network; or obtainingthe data model information supported by the CPE according to the uniformresource locator from the CPE.
 13. The method of one of claim 12,wherein the data model supported by the CPE comprises at least one of:parameters supported by the CPE, and type of the parameters; and aRemote Procedure Call, RPC, method supported by the CPE and arguments ofthe RPC method, argument type, range and RPC call return informationregarding the RPC method.
 14. The method of claim 13, wherein the datamodel information supported by the CPE further comprises: range of theparameters or device class information of the CPE.
 15. A method formanaging custom premises equipments, configured to implement the methodcomprising: obtaining a uniform resource locator from the CPE, whereinthe uniform resource locator references an Extensible Markup Languagefile which describes data model supported by the CPE; and obtaining thedata model supported by the CPE based on the uniform resource locator;configuring the CPE according to the data model.